


Germaphobia

by labofwomb



Category: Original Work
Genre: Animals, Anthropomorphic, Apocalypse, Body Horror, Clones, Experimentation, Furry, Government Experimentation, Hospitals, Laboratories, Medical Experimentation, Other, POV First Person, Post-Apocalypse, Talking Animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:47:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21684727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labofwomb/pseuds/labofwomb
Summary: Pick apart your piecesJust to watch what makes you tickScream all you wantThere's no way out of thisYou dug yourself a hole, a craterTrying to get away from your bloodNow it's just peace of mindYou're dreaming of...
Kudos: 4





	Germaphobia

The first that I felt as I emerged from the numb void that had overcome me was a crawling bout of shivers, deep shudders coiling my body making a strained gasp leak from me. Breathing felt alien, unusual as I rouse myself from my comatose state. I...I sound strange. I don’t even know who “I” is. My paws grip at the floor. I finally open my eyes. In front of me was a piercing shade of pure white. In fact, everything was white. So white I could barely make out the corners of the hallway fading into shadows.

Lifting my head, I begin to finally take note of what is in front of me. The halls don’t seem to have an ending. All I can see in those shadowy depths is a single, flickering light. I look up to confirm why the damned hall was so blinding when I awoke. Another light is positioned above me, hanging carelessly over my head. Still, I don’t feel right, nothing felt right.

I carefully push myself to my feet, swallowing as a wave of nausea washes over my shaking body. My front paws buckle as weight is shifted forcefully up and down my delirious figure, rocking me like a small boat being torn by waves in the depths of a merciless storm. I begin to wonder what exactly a storm is and as to why I even created such an analogy. Lifting a leg, I examine my grey fur. It ascends into a ring of orange, followed by a purple paw. Grey..? Storms are grey. Yes, storms are particularly violent weather. If I can remember that, then what the hell is my name? 

My memory was becoming a concern to me.

Obviously, I’m currently a fucking mess. My teeth grit as I finally catch my balance, lifting a front leg and beginning to walk forwards into the darkness. As I move, the dreary, uncomfortable feeling of grogginess fades. Was this...a hospital? I peer at the walls, pale pink lines with an occasional medical cross decorating the hall.

These doctors must have been snobby to put in such thoughts to interior designs of all things. I fail to notice a fastly approaching wall, ramming into it and knocking myself backwards into dizziness. Cursing gently under my breath, I glance upwards at the door. Upon it was a sign which read "SURGERY ROOM" with ridiculous flowers scrawled about in crayon around the bold, pink lettering. Was I trapped in some warped set up of a children's show? Fuck, at least that would make things more interesting. I reach forwards with a front leg. A front...leg. Drawing it back, I examine my paw. Getting around would be harder than I thought. I needed a mirror.

Awkwardly, I lift myself onto my hind quarters, outstretching both of my front legs and pawing at the knob. With difficulty, I tighten both my paws around the handle, jerking it downwards. Locked. Sighing, I retract myself, pressing my head to the side of the door. It didn’t sound like anything was happening inside. I get up again, gazing back into the hall with annoyance. This again. At least I knew where one exit was. 

I was pretty sure, as tiny as I apparently was, my body could do crazy shit in a time of need. Maybe I had wings. I really needed that mirror. As I walk, I adjust my shoulders, flexing them and looking back with a childish sense of hope. I guess, whatever I was, I was nothing cool.

I walk down the hall for a few minutes before I notice an opening, peering into a strange, round curve for a hall. My eyes flicker with curiosity. Was this here before? Maybe I failed to notice it at first. I turn into the hall, looking up at the flickering bulbs hovering high above my head. A slight, gentle movement catches my attention. A...mirror? I tilt my head, peering at the strange creature I was revealed to be. I looked pathetic. Fucking embarrassing, even, like a wet kitten. 

My ears where large, drooping slightly to the sides of my head. Grey fur covered my body in messy clumps. My markings where abstract, a purple and orange striped arrow running down my back. It was bright enough to make me grow nauseous. My paws where what I had seen before, but my back legs broke off into light gray stripes. The same shade of gray ran up my tail in two, large dots, black in the middle of each. Orange and purple stripes ringed around the fluffy clump over them.

Disgust filled my eyes as I sigh. I guess I must have always been this way. I looked awful. Putrid. I almost wanted to…wanted to…well…

Suddenly, my reflection turns before my eyes, giving me a strange, sideways stare, blank and emotionless. Startled, I stare back, leaning onto my haunches as I try to comprehend the surreal moment. I stare into what was so wrong, what shouldn’t possibly happen. Anxiety and a foreign feeling of discomfort fill my body as I watch it picks up it’s pace, it’s head still hanging awkwardly over its shoulder as it scampers away from me.

It took me a second to notice what was really wrong with this creature. It had a second mouth running down it’s back, grimacing at me as, what I was guessing to be its head continued to gawk at me without any sort of feeling. Panicked, I circle myself a few times, watching my tail and trying to check my back. Nothing, no grimacing, deformed face stretching over my spine. My back was clear, not even a hint of that sort of abomination nestled between my fur.

What the fuck? What was that thing? I raise my head, peering down the hall it had ran down. Moving forwards a little, a sharp pain stabs my face, causing me to stumble backwards. It was glass, stretching up and down the ceiling and floor of the hallway. In some sort of marker, smiley faces were drawn over the clear material. I grimace at it. Not this shit again.

As I travel back down where I came from, anxiety churns within me. Something doesn’t feel right ever since I saw that fucked up doppelganger of myself. Before, what was I feeling? I pick up my pace a little, sweat dripping down my muzzle as I squint a little. It was an urge...a strong urge...an incredible urge to...to destroy it...to absolutely mutilate it and shred it across the floor. My teeth grind into each other in an attempt to balance the dizziness in my head, vision going off-kilter as the halls become one huge, blurred, white tube. 

This didn’t feel natural, but it definitely felt necessary, important to find that creepy deformed imposter and mutilate it. No, no no no. That was weird. It feels immoral to have these kinds of feelings. Just, oddly wrong.

I finally stop my mindless wandering and draw in a deep breath, noticing how choked up I was. Desire was still running hot in my veins, but I needed to fucking think. Shit. This isn’t right. This feels so forced onto me. Inhaling one more time, I look around myself. My fur stood up on end as a cold, worried feeling leaks through my skin and nestles between my bones. It was disgusting in here. 

The whole atmosphere had changed from the once disturbingly white, almost eerily peaceful halls it had once been. Chairs were tipped over and smeared with rusty liquids, the white walls scattered with muddy, leaking streams of water. The doors were jammed, desks and chairs crowding around them as if they were witnessing a gruesome car wreck. Behind me was steadily less dirty, two glass doors leading into familiar halls.

I grunt as I lift myself onto a chair, gazing into the outdoors. Mist blanketed the concrete around the building, patches of moss and grass surrounding the corners of the wings of the hospital. Feeling unsteady, I tilt my head and press my cheek to the glass to try to look further off to the side. 

In the distance, I can see faint figures standing in the vacant beyond. My chest tightens as my jaws begin to part, mustering the courage to cry out to them. My jaws squeeze shut suddenly, a boiling sense of the whole idea being a mistake grabbing my body with hot fingers. Instead I lower myself, examining them a little while longer. 

They stood unmoving, but still seemed to have a very slight, very gentle drift to them. Not unmoving, but barely moving, bobbing around each other just gently enough I could barely see it. It felt strange, the crowd, but unlike before, I didn’t have the urge to completely grind them bloody across the ground.

I finally lower myself off of the pile, careful not to let it fall above my feeble body. I tuck my tail between my legs and wander back towards one of the doors, testing the handle awkwardly. It falls under the pressure, swinging open just enough for my muzzle to wedge it further ajar. 

The hall curves strangely again, almost as if it were moving upwards subtly. My shoulders fall with a sigh as I continue my trek through what seems to be a shitty abstract art project that had gone out of hand.

Gradually, the hall grows darker, shrouding me in an almost secure way. Small, green lights begin appearing around me, illuminating my fur with their soft glow. More flashing lights began to appear around me, protruding from boxes similar to computer chips. They were connected by wires of varying width, growing into larger boxes above my head, almost like the inside of a computer. I lower my head, worried they may fall on me as I wander below them.

A faint tapping noise causes me to raise my head once more, sounds of clicking, sliding, and other electronic sounds echoing through the hall. Glancing up nervously, I pick up my pace, hoping for the company of another living creature, preferably not mutated. Someone that didn’t elicit that strange urge inside me from before.

What came into view was unexpected. Propped up by thin, green screens with binary crawling up them was what appeared to be a rabbit. He was lanky, dripping with sweat as he peered at the screen from behind his strange glasses. The lenses seemed like they were melted, dripping right out of the frames. His fingers were whisking gently over some screens, the other hand raising to another one off to his side from time to time to slide something around.

I gawk at him for a moment, lowering my head as I slowly creep up behind him. I didn’t feel that same violent urge from earlier but I felt anxious at the thought of grabbing his attention. He seemed absorbed in his work, tapping his foot in the air gently as his ears twitch and swivel. 

Suddenly, he locks his screen, sitting up and stretching.

“What are you doing in here, Fog?” He mumbles, turning his head over his shoulder to glance back at me. I freeze up, my claws scraping the floor nervously as I avert my eyes. “Wh..who the fuck is Fog…?” I manage to grumble my first words in a while, my mouth shaking with my crumbling, dry voice. 

The rabbit sighed, flipping on his computer again. He typed a while longer before speaking again. “I see it’s affected your memory badly. That’s a shame, we couldn’t fix that flaw.,” He murmurs almost to himself. “I guess it isn’t much of a loss, at least for us. You’ll still function properly, I guarantee it.” He continues.

“No...wait..what the hell...wh..who’s Fog? Is that my name?” I insist.  
“Yes. Congratulations.”  
“Wait...no, fuck that...how do...how do you know it if I don’t?” I stutter, clawing at the floor as mild frustration assists my confusion. He groans, leaning forwards a little and causing his spine to let out a sickening cracking noise.

“I’ve been working with you for a while. A lot of you, actually.”  
“What...what are you saying?”  
“I’m sure you’ve seen at least one.”  
“Shit…”  
“I’d be worried to, I presume.”  
He leans in further, focusing on the text scrolling in front of his eyes. I sit behind him, more confused than I was upon waking up.

“But...why is there…”  
“We cloned you.”  
“What?”  
“Science is amazing.”  
“Can you give me direct, non shitty answers?”  
“I wish your attitude was the thing you lost.”

His chair swivels away from his screen, making a bizarre humming noise. He leans forwards, his elbow resting on his thigh as he lays his cheek in his palm with a small frown. “A variable of an experiment isn’t generally granted the knowledge of what’s going on. It’s just affected. I guess we’ll make an exception, since all that can be done is done.” He drags on, seeming hesitant whether or not to spill it to me.

“You’re an antibiotic, modeled after a white blood cell.” He explains, rubbing his chin with his thumb. “You’re what’s going to save this pathetic earth that wouldn’t trust technology.”

“Wh..what do you mean...I’m not a fucking germ…”  
“A blood cell.”  
“Well I ain’t that either!”  
“You behave as one. Have you felt it? You can sense things we can’t.”

I pause, thinking back to the strange feelings that stirred inside of me before. Gently, I let out a sigh, my ears falling to the side of my head. “Wh..why did you do that to me though, like...what the fuck?”  
“You offered.”  
“What?”

The rabbit sighed, turning his head to the side. “Of course you forgot. Let me explain, then.” He finally says. “The world is ending, Fog. It’s just our time. We’ve mummified this earth with concrete and nature is having it’s way with us. It’s responding to the invasion and making us kill each other.”

“H..how? What do you mean?”

He pauses for a second, gathering words in his mind. “It’s trying to kick us out of its system. Three years ago, a strange occurrence began spreading. It began with a simple murder, but gradually became something more than just a local newspaper story. People began behaving strangely, vile towards other and aggressive towards the point of either forcing them to die or just outright killing them. Groups of people began banding against others, getting infected with this strange, defensive aggression. Soon, groups became singular people as they began to turn on each other, leading them to their deaths. We’ve gone down by millions, Fog. We’re going extinct. You’re our last hope to get rid of the virus. You can sense them.”

I shake my head, going nauseous with pressure and confusion. “W..w..wait...how is that going to help anything? Killing more people? That’s all I feel around...around...them…”

He lowers his arm, reclining in his chair. “Yes. Because they’re the bacteria spreading the virus and killing off others. You have to get rid of them before they spread it.”

“W-wait…” I stutter, trying to comprehend what he was so casually telling me. “I...I...I don’t think...I could kill anyone...a..and...why are the clones infected? Are you infected?”  
He chuckles lightly, the first time I ever saw him smile slightly. “I guess you’ve lost experience, then. Fog, you’re a serial killer. You have a taste for this.”

“Wait, what the fuck?” I reply, shocked. Memories...memories where coming back. His words where provoking something.

“And the clones...we pumped you full of the virus. We have been studying it for a long time now, we have ways to protect ourselves from it. You, on the other hand, had to suffer it. We had to figure out how to make you immune. It only took several hundred mutated, infected copies of you to finally get the perfect subject. You, Fog, aren’t even who you were anymore. You’re simply a copy of what you physically and mentally once were living for another purpose.”

My chest tightens as my breathing grows raspy, my head spinning as flashbacks echo through my head. I...I’ve killed...I...I did it...I did it to protect...them? The..the orphanage. My head aches as his steady words of such shocking news cause my mind to reach back and remember...remember what I merely used to be years ago.

“You had a good reason to do it, after watching them all die.”

My head snaps up, my eyes growing blank as memories of the orphanage spill into my mind. I was abandoned as a child, and they took me in and gave me what I never thought I’d have. They were one of the only people I could trust and was compassionate to. I stare upwards.

It was a small, rundown orphanage, not very good with money and located in the depths of the city. They raised me despite my mental health, and in return I protected them from all those greedy fucks trying to buy a house for land for their money grubbing businesses. I did it the only way I could. I...I began to sweat, looking up at the rabbit with wide eyes.

“They’re dead. The bacteria got them and I watched them all die. They all killed each other, but I was the only one who survived.”

“That’s right.” He muses, twirling his foot. “It’s nice you’re getting your memory back.”

“I...I don’t fucking like it, you bastard, don’t be so smug…”  
“Calm down, Fog. I’m simply happy for you. Now you should go to her.”  
“Who?”  
“Goddess.”  
“Wh..what?”  
“You’ll remember. Please leave. I have work to do. She’s outside, the Goddess.” He murmurs, turning around in his chair to face his screens again.  
“W-wait…”  
“Hm?”  
“Who are you?”

He sighs. “I’m .exe, the lead scientist of your cloning. I’ve dealt with you many times. I know more about you than I’m comfortable with, and I don’t need any more experience with you distracting me. Please leave.”

I did as I was told. What an asshole. Still, I was disoriented from the sudden rush of memories. They were awful, traumatic, sudden. I make my way back into the room to find the door being violently pounded against. I raise my head, peering at the rectangle left of exposed window. 

Millions of them were crowding it, some with multiple legs, eyes, two mouths. Some differences were barely noticeable. A slight colour change. A shorter ear. But I knew what I had to do.

...

I awake with a shuddering gasp, tremors running through my body as tears ran down my face. I could feel it in my hands, hot fluids of those disgusting clones. Ripping them to shreds had made me sick, the crunching of bones and cries, echoes of my own voice running through my mind. My head was spinning. I was in a hospital bed, shaking as I sit up. I look at my paws.

Clean. They were clean now. I slide out of bed, falling to my haunches and peering up at the door. Animals. Disgusting, bacterial animals. I needed to do more, and get out of the hospital. I needed to rid the earth of their filth and win it back. I had accepted my fate as an antivirus. But with that, the door. The handle wouldn’t budge.

...

Two doctors stood behind the small mirror high on the wall in Fog’s room. Their voices were hushed, gentle, and interrupted by a few clicks by a mantis looking doctor standing to the side of a wolfish one. “It’s the first of many. I’ve never...never something like this before, it’s awful. Worse than government experiments with diseases hidden in food. They’re acting like demons…” The bug mumbles, his hands curling over each other under his long claws, which were huddled together.

“Nahhh. They’re fine. Release them.” The canine purrs in her strange voice.  
“Doctor…this isn’t a good idea...”  
“They’re perfect. They’re fantastic! I can’t wait, I can’t wait…I can’t wait to see her fix everything, the whole corrupt...corrupt world….”  
“Doctor, she’s the main cause of this...this virus.”  
“It’s needed, it’s just time, you feel me?”  
“T-time...doctor…”  
“Goddess.” A voice from behind them calls, causing them to turn towards the door. A lanky rabbit hesitates before stepping in, his ears dripping with sweat as a gentle smile moves his lips. ‘She..she’s ready to speak to you. I made sure of it.”

The female doctor grins, her fangs glinting. “Thaaaaaank you, .exe, honey. You do me so proud. We’ll fix everything now.”

**Author's Note:**

> art by https://twitter.com/mileskitaro !!


End file.
